Administrators of enterprise computing environments face numerous challenges. Enterprise computing environments typically consist of a plurality of virtual or hardware servers that provide distributed functions to an enterprise, or which may be divided into smaller clusters for specific purposes. Individual servers or clusters may be dedicated to users who utilize the cluster for user-defined services or tasks under the user's control. The enterprise administrator maintains the server environments to ensure that the latest available operating systems and applications are provided in the environment.
In the context of an enterprise computing environment, a server may comprise a physical computing device or one or more virtual servers supported by physical hardware. In many cases, the processing hardware in the computing environment will not be uniform—various different types of hardware configurations, from various manufacturers, make up an enterprise computing environment. An advantage of virtualized servers is that they generally appear the same, independent of the physical hardware used to create them.
A typical server has a processing capacity, an operating system, one or more applications, non-volatile memory storing the applications and volatile memory allowing the processing unit to operate on the instructions for implementing the applications. In a physical server, these elements are fixed by the hardware, while in a virtual environment, specifications of the processing capacity and the server environment can be constructed in accordance with a desired environment.
A system management server may provide management of the multitude of processing devices. The system management server maintains records on the status of each of the processing devices in the enterprise environment and allows changes to be made to the environment under the control of a central authority.